Halo
by blackpearlbreathe
Summary: "Life is not always fair, but we suck it up and go on", she explained and before Bolin could actually interrupt her, the note of bitterness in her last word made him stop. "'He lost something and some of us take a while to get over, some longer, and some never do" – post-finale, mako-centric, self-discovery, makorra of sorts.
1. Chapter 1

i'll close my eyes,

and then i won't see...

the love you don't feel

when you're holding me.

morning will come,

and i'll do what's right:

just give me till then

to give up this fight,

and i'll give up this fight.

"i can't make you love me" - bon iver's version.

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><p>.<p>

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There was something wistful about the way things ended, despite the fact that everyone was happy and alive – oh, well, mostly anyway. He saw Avatar Korra – actually just Korra, he had to remind himself now – walk away from him to talk to other people without really feeling like that was how it was supposed to be – or, at least, how he wanted it to be, at Varrick and Zhu Li wedding's.

Maybe he was being selfish, or maybe there were things he wanted so badly that he was starting to confuse dreams with reality, but he expected more from his admission to Korra than a smile and a hug. He frowned right after realizing too that he was actually expecting too much: there was a really long time since they've been anything to each other, anyway.

It was foolish to think that another happy ending would bring everything back they way it was the first time everything turned out fine so many years ago, when they were still young and reckless. It was another time (so far away from now) when they were different people and – and that was a lie as much as it was a truth.

He may have become another person, but his feelings did not change – and believe him, he tried so hard to make them.

His eyes went with Korra, watching as she greeted every single person on that party with a wide smile: he had always wished hapiness upon her, and had sworn to himself that hers would be enough to make him whole, but that was true when he was the source of that smile. Now, as cruel as that seemed, the happiness in her eyes irked him, and he hated himself for being such a jerk – not that he hadn't known this all along, but it's been more evident lately.

"Is everthing alright, Bro?" Bolin asked, almost making Mako jump from surprise, except that all those years of hiding beneath masks made his composture become more of his own skin than it should have, "You look kinda down, ya know".

"I'm fine," he said more quickly than he intended and Bolin raised an eyebrow at his seriousness. "It's just – my arm, it's killing me" it was a truth, but so out of place that tasted like a lie in his lips. As much as it hurted, it was nothing compared to all other things hurting him too.

"Oh, come on, Mr. Brooding, it's a weeding! You can let that beat all this!" he said so cheerfully while unconciously eyeing Opal before pulling Mako into him for a little tour around the party, that Mako almost smiled – at least his brother's happiness still made him happy, even if just a little bit. "Love is in the air, Mako, just give it a deep breathe and you'll feel it too!".

Mako thought about telling his brother that he was not in the mood, but something told him that if he tried to resist, it would take more time for Bokin to let him alone, so he just went with it – he was faking so many things, why not fake just another one?

Except that, from the corner of his eyes, Bolin could see it all too well: the tightness of his smile, the uneasiness on his shoulders, the sadness in the back of his eyes. It's been like that ever since Korra had disapered all those years ago to recover herself from that poison, and it's still there as fresh – and as open – of a wound as it was the day she left.

Bolin has been wondering for a really long time now just about when would Mako stop pretending he didn't feel it so he could finally act like a real brother and stop pretending that he didn't see it too, the desolation in his presence.

Unconciously – and Mako had come to know that his brother did that a lot – Bolin squeezed his shoulder tighter and there was that frown of disbelief in his face while he was still rambling about how much more awesome his wedding to Opal would be from Varrick's, while trying to keep from asking the questions he gave up asking almost two years ago: _"Why are you so sad all the time?", "Why are you working so much, if we don't need it anymore?", "What can I do to help you?", "I'm your brother, so why won't you stop keeping me in the dark?!". _

"I'm fine, Bolin, I mean it", Mako said in such a serious tone that it made Bolin stop. "You don't need to try so hard: just – just believe me, ok?", he let go of Bolin to walk away, not really sure of where he was supposed to go from there, just sure that he need a way out of anything.

Before Bolin could run after him, he felt a hand on his shoulder keeping him from moving foward and leading him from the center of the party to one quiet spot near the exit. "Stop it, Kid", said Lin in such a nonchalant tone that it annoyed Bolin a little, "There's no use trying to save those who don't want to be saved".

"What do you know about him?!", Bolin started raising his voice letting desperation take over, "I can't take it anymore: seeing him so bad, even in a day like this! It's not fair!".

_"I understand him more than I would like to"_, Lin thought to herself not letting his outburst bother her, looking somewhere far away while memories of an old love and a heartbreak were ironically flying all over her mind now – she knew Mako's behavior so well it hurted her too. A little. "Life is not always fair, but we suck it up and go on", she explained and before Bolin could actually interrupt her, the note of bitterness in her last word made him stop. "'He lost something and some of us take a while to get over, some longer, and some never do", she took a deep breathe for a second, briefly trying to scare away her own ghosts.

"Some need help, and some prefer to do it alone no matter the consequences. Just respect his timing. If he ever needs you, he'll let you know". Lin started to pull away and go back to the party, to her table, because she did not got all dressed up to end up not having at least a little break out of that wedding! "And if he doesn't, well... Maybe you'll need to learn how to let go too. People change and there's nothing you can do about that".

.

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><p><strong>an:**

hello, everyone! it's been a craaaaazy year and just now on vocations - yay! - I got time to think about life and how i missed fanfictions. but yesterday i saw LOK's finale and it just rang a bell, ya know? i got it, Mako, i fell you! so i just HAD to writte something. it will be mako-centric and about self-discovery and i'd like it do be makorra at the end, but i'm not sure mako's growth will lead to that. i can just assure you that there will always be makorra, even if one-sided. i'll let mako grow on his own. let's just hope it will lead him to korra, because i'm a makorra shipper and if korra were to be with any of the main characters in my stories, it will always be mako.

forgive me for any mistakes btw, english is not my mother language.

please leave me a review telling me what you think! it would make my day :)

**disclaimer:**

i don't own anything related to LOK or A:TLA, sadly.


	2. Chapter 2

when you try your best, but you don't succeed...

when you get what you want, but not what you need...

when you feel so tired, but you can't sleep:

stuck in reverse.

and the tears come streaming down your face,

when you lose something you can't replace.

when you love someone, but it goes to waste...

could it be worse?

"fix you" – coldplay.

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><p>.<p>

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Wasn't there any other day Varrick could have picked to get married?! Did it had to be in the coldest day ever?

Mako did not know why, at some moment, there was so much snow falling (he kind of remembered seeing in the news last week that this week would have some sunny days, but the alcohol in his blood wasn't helping him much with memories), but it did not stopped him from cursing every single nature god he could still think – no matter the nation – of for the lack of a better thing to do when you simply don't know.

Actually, he did not know a lot of things like if the cold he was feeling was really from the bad weather and snow, or for the fact that he felt so uterly alone.

Not that that fact was anything new, but he came to find after many encounters with friends and meetings in general that trying to ignore his hurt at the same time as pretending to smile was too hard – that, and the fact that he was not about to lose the little left of his sanity for the sake of appearances.

He found that if he could avoid people, his sadness would not scream so loudly - he would have nothing to compare his misery with. But there, at that wedding, celebrating love and acceptance with all those people, his heart started to break in pieces so small that he begun to be afraid that if that kept going – if he stayed there much longer – at some point he would not be able to destinguish the pieces of his heart from the dust on the floor and that, without being able to see all of them and picking them up, mending his heart back together would be impossible – no matter how good he became at it.

So while he could still pick up the pieces, he left.

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Bolin was left staring at the horizon and after sometime, the only thing that he could distinguish was the snow and how its vast whiteness made everything else irrelevant, inexistent. He, for a moment there, almost prayed to that ocean of endless snow asking if it could make Mako's suffering despair too – if it could swallow him whole and them spit out only his old brother, letting the hurt and angriness get lost in that strong wind that always came with winter, never to be found again.

He knew it was pointless, but he was never one to stand still: if praying was the only thing he could do, so be it! Someone would have to hear him. And if not, at least when he heard himself whispering words of hope and love for his brother, he could still say he did not give up. Even if deep down, maybe...

"Hey, Bo, what are you doing here all alone?", Korra punches Bolin in his left arm, trying to get his attention – she had been calling him from afar, but for some reason he didn't listen to her. "Is the food over already?".

Bolin felt an urge to shove it in her face that he had learned some manners, how to contain his excitement over free food over the last few years she was away, but there was something preventing him from feeling proud of anything when he could not even find a way to help his brother.

There was also the fact that if she had stayed, or if she had allowed them to be with her at the time she made the choice to be alone because of the poison, maybe she would have known it already. For a second, he wanted to snap at her - hard and unforgiving.

But before he could do so, a voice in the back of his mind – much like Mako's – called him stupid for fighting other people's battles, much less the ones that those people didn't even consider a fight at all: Mako tried to forget Korra for as long as she was gone, that he knew, even if his brother had not make anything out of it just yet. Mako's bad mood was finally rubbing into him and he indeed felt stupid for even considering arguing with Korra over that. Mako had made it quite clear that nothing of this was any of his business and as Lin said, Bolin would have to respect his brother's decision at some point.

So he laugh – full and loud – like he didn't laugh in a really long time with all the korra-gone-becoming-kuviras'-soldier-kuvira-becoming-crazy-i'm-sorry-opal-let's-save-republic-city-together thing over the last years, because when he finally had nothing to worry about, with Kuvira in prison and everything fine with Opal, he just had to try to keep being a hero and making life hard and complicated by trying to solve Mako's life. He said it once, Bolin remembers, that his big heart would kill him someday and Bolin had never understood how could that be until that moment.

"Bolin, talk to me! What's wrong with you?!" Korra now sounded scared, eyeing him like he had grown another head.

"I'm ok, Korra, seriously", he said trying to catch his breathe again after pratically crying from so much laughter. "I was just remembering all the things that got us here", he rubbed his eyes to make the tears go away. "Isn't it funny? How I would have never guessed I'd one day help save the world! Me, Bolin, the orphan kid running around the streets, a hero".

Korra didn't quite know how to respond that, because a serious Bolin wasn't something she knew how to deal with.

But then again life had a strange way of making things change and still make them feel like home somehow, and the next thing he said had just proved it. "I mean, not that I take the whole credit for everything...", he tried to sound humble and that made Korra giggle: there was no such a thing as a humble Bolin no matter how much time passed. "But just think of how totally lost you'd all be without my top secret knowledge of Kuvira's arm, and let's not even remember the fact that without me Varrick wouldn't even be here today... Just, ok, don't even think about it! You'd be dead!".

"Yeah, right" Korra giggles once more, not really being able to hide the mockery on her voice. "All hail to Nuktuk, now hero of all nations!".

That name felt strange in his ears, despite being familiar. He remembered his time as Nuktuk with some fondness, when the biggest problem in his life was trying to win that red-headed actress' heart. "There's a name for what you're feeling, ya know" Bolin says trying to sound offended, "and it's called envy! It's not noble of the Avatar to feel such a thing... I'm totally telling Tenzin".

Korra and Bolin look at each other in silence for some time, before bursting into laughter together, not really caring about the fact that the other guests to the wedding might be thinking them idiots – well, the world is finally saved, so they can be whoever they want now anyway. "So," Korra is the first to talk, "You're fine?".

He takes a deep breathe before answering her, "_I_ am fine, 'you?".

"I'm too", she says with such a smile in her face that Bolin takes the liberty to get a good look at her, now noticing that Korra looks different – she looks whole – for the first time in ages. For the first time since she was that care-free, loud and optimistic girl who helped him and Mako at the pro-bending arena.

And, of course, being whole again makes her as beuatiful as she was back in those old days of youth and innocence.

He remembered how hard he fell in love with her for those exact same traits and some more and he feels happy for her – happy because despite everything that happened she is still the Korra he loved and loves, even if in a different way now.

And he also feels that soft wave of pain and nostalgia washing over him ever so briefly, because if he could saw how well Korra was again, so did Mako. Except that Mako was not whole again... And that realization must have killed him too.

"I'm happy for you - for all of us – I trully am... Even if I'm a little spacey today".

"Sure, I can see that, Bo", except that she does not quite believe him. It didn't bother her as much as it would have some years ago... It wasn't her problem nowadays. There was someone else to take care of him now, and she just knew he'd be fine in no time. "Anyway, I came here because Opal was looking for you! Stop being so down and come celebrate with everyone!".

"I was just going to do that!" he repplied, rolling his eyes before running back to the party to find Opal.

"Geez, you just kinda sounded like Mako and – and, yeah, where is he?! I have just talked to him and now –", when Korra turned to look for Bolin he was gone and, before she could really realize that Mako was nowhere to be seen, Asami shows up out of nowhere too claiming she has to introduce her to someone she knew.

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><p><strong>an:**

ok, guys, i know there is not much mako in this... but it's because i love bolin and i wanted to show you what he was feeling too! it got begger than i thought it would, but oh well... that's life! and i wanted to justify mako's sudden need to leave.

gotta tell ya that we won't be hearing from team avatar for a really longe time! like, reaaaally long. so leave a review saying what you think and your good-byes :)

again, sorry for the mistakes... not my mother language and my microsoft word isn't working :(

let me know if you think anyone is OOC too!

**disclaimer:**

i don't own anything related to LOK or A:TLA, sadly.


	3. Chapter 3

when the sins of my father

weigh down in my soul,

and the pain of my mother

will not let me go...

so let the claps fill with thunderous applause!

... and let thy death be the veins.

and fill the sky,

with all that they can drop:

i know there can come fire from the sky,

i know this fire brings me pain.

"make it rain" – ed sheeran.

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><p>.<p>

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It was funny, really, how everything turned out: when he was a kid, when he was alone with his brother, when he had nowhere to go, when he was absolutely certain there would never be a bigger pain than losing his parents, when he was so sure that if he could find a way – any way! – to survive that, nothing would ever bring him down... Yeah, he was wrong – again.

Just like when he always thought a child should be raised by his parents, but that was taken away from him; when he thought his brother deserved better than being raised by an angry kid that had no idea what he was doing, but he didn't have anything else to offer; when he thought he knew pain, but then he didn't – not all kinds of pain, anyway.

His heart has been broken for quite a while now, for so many things he stopped counting a long time ago. And somehow he had always found a way to keep going.

You lose some, you win some, and in the end of the day the winning he got out of life had been enough to keep him breathing, to keep the ghosts chained to his past and not his present – and that was one of the few things he always felt proud of, of being able to scare his regrets and mistakes away with the hope he could still feel about doing the right thing another day.

Before he knew, his feet had dragged him back to the city and, more specifically, to the west side of it. He was now in front of a huge building, that was tall and – and the details didn't really matter. The only thing he could see between blurred windows and the need to throw up was an old house. His old home, actually.

No matter how many times he tried to shake that bad feeling out of him, whenever he'd lay his eyes at that place, something would pierce him so furiously that Mako could not help but let his face be ragged with disgust and that one feeling he could not properly distinguish, or that he did not want to.

Sometimes it felt like he didn't need anything, or anyone, but other times he felt like he needed closure.

The way he was inside, his heart's doors that were unkindly open, ragged and wrecked: if anything any good came by (or someone) even if it went wrong, there wouldn't be much left to be destroyed anyway – nothing he couldn't handle. Or nothing that couldn't go away if he had enough alcohol in his blood, in and out of his beaten heart, making him feel nothing too bad or too strong for too long if he didn't want to.

But what would happen if he closed the doors? If he took his time to stop and try to put everything back in place? If he let himself be healed? If he was made whole?

Well, he would probably just end up being the same way he has always been, or worse, and he didn't feel like taking chances and ending up with "the worse" part. Not again.

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_There were not enough words to describe what he was feeling at the moment: there were screams coming from deep within his home, and for some odd reason he was yet to be old enough to understand, he felt happy that he left Bolin playing with Reiki, their friend and helpful soldier in times of foolishness and fantasy, while he came home to let their parents know that Lahra, Reiki's mother, had invited them to lunch._

_Not that he was going to ask for permission to do that, of course not! He was eight years old already: almost nine – that was also almost ten and – and as such he did not need to ask for anything if he didn't want to._

_But he remembered his mother telling him that respect and consideration had to be present in our days and relationships, dispite your age or the person you were talking to. So he decided it would be at least polite that if he was to come back late, to let them know why._

_He did not want to let his parents worrying over nothing, because that was what children did. And Mako didn't see himself as a child anymore: he was becoming a man._

_Mako felt his feet running faster, yet not really sure that dispite becoming a man, he wanted to know what was happening._

_A voice deeep and low much like his father's when he was screaming over him for the – ever so rare, mind you – moments when he did something wrong warned him to go back to play with Bolin and Reiki and that things would be just fine eventually, and he didn't understand why._

_He kept going. Mako was never what could be said as an obedient child: he was only lucky enough most of the times to fix the wrong things before actually getting into trouble... And he was sure that his lucky wouldn't let him down this time too._

_When he got inside the house, there was an strange voice coming from the living room and that same voice that tried to stop him said that he should try to make no noises._

_For some reason, this time Mako felt like obeying._

_He was not so sure as to why that voice was speaking so much, but his mother always told him that even from afar, there would be always good spirits send by her and his father looking over Bolin and him, and he supposed that today those spirits just didn't have much else to do._

_So he tried to repesct them by actually doing what they told him and coming quietly to the room. Just that once._

_He did not expect what he saw._

_His mother was on her knees and his father was screaming something to a man standing in from of them: the sofa was half-burned, different from the rest of the room that was completly eaten by what seemed to be a fire explosion, or a fight._

_He quickly looked around the house behind him for the first time since he got in and he noticed that it was all broken and out of place too._

_He felt stupid for not noticing it right away, but he was so worried to get back to Reiki's house before Bolin could eat all the food that while running, the only thing he could think about was that delicious berry cake Lahra used to do and how he was dying to taste it again. Such childish things for someone becoming a man..._

_He took a deep breathe and quietly started to walk into the living room to try and do something, anything that could take that hopeless look out of his mother's eyes._

_When he finally stood near the entrance, his mother's eyes locked with his and, before he could do anything, things happened too fast._

_He briefly remebered how young his mother's face looked when she cried, and how high was her voice when she screamed for him to run._

_He briefly remembered how fast his father moved, when that stranger turned to Mako's direction right after his mother screamed his name, using his earth-bending to lock the guy's feet to the ground and stop him from going after him._

_He briefly remembered seeing his mother trying to fire a blast to the direction of the man, but it looked like her arm was broken, and she missed him._

_But he vividly remembered the hollow laugh that filled the air right after his mother mistake's, that seemed to burn away any hope he had that this was all a nightmare._

_Than he saw it – the spark, the light, the cruel smirk – for the first time: he didn't know, he had never seen it before, but he was preparing himself to bent lightnting at him. Suddenly, there was something in his posture that made Mako close his eyes, and brace himself for whatever was going to happen next._

_He felt the lightnting passing so close to his arm that it ripped his shirt: the man missed him. Mako than quickly opened his eyes to see that his father had thrown himself at the attacker, while he was distracted, trying to hold him for long enough so Mako could get out. He seemed to be punched in the face by rage, and the next thing he saw was his father also being thrown away from him, hitting a wall. Hard._

_Mako screamed, for the first time._

_His father was down, unconscious, and pool of blood was beginning to appear on the floor around his head. His mother screamed too, as if the pain that stabbed him had stabbed her too._

_Than there was that awful, haunted little sound that made them both look back to the stranger, and he was finally free from the hold his father kept him. Mako cringed, suddenly thinking he was too big, too tall. "Watch and learn, kid", he said as he turned to face Mako, eyes gleaming with mad desire, and his mother still lying on the floor, unable to move. "What happens when you're not strong enough to survive". He was making that same strange stance he did before while he started to generate lightning again, "... How easily I can break them, and how easily I'm gonna break you too"._

_There was a sobb, deep and sad, afraid. "RUN, MAKO!", his mother said one more time, tears rolling down her face, "... PLEASE!" and than, even if erratically, she shout fire at him so he could move._

_And when he finally did, his feet obeyed her, even if he wanted to stay._

_And as he run out of the house, screaming for help – for anyone that could save him from the things he saw, anyone that could take that all back – he heard his mother's scream once more: but this time, as the sound of her scream was getting lower and lower, even from afar, Mako could almost feel her life slipping away through her voice._

_._

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Pain.

Hurting endlessly each and every time he breathed, and pain – but, oh, not painful enough. Not enough for him to die, anyway. Although sometimes he wished he could.

Suddenly, he came back from his memories and he was not Mako, the detective, the adult: he was eight years old, with dead parents and no where to go, trying to stop his shaking hand before Bolin – so young – could find out that in reality he was just as scared as he was about the things he didn't know, about the things they would never have again – just as weak, hurt, and lost.

And for some unknown reason he also felt like Mako, the one left in the dark by the only other person he had ever loved after their death, for the last three years, while left to wonder all kinds of things, still alone; and Mako, the one who couldn't move on when everyone seemed to be so damn happy and whole – all too real and too painful, all at once.

Tears started to roll down his face while feeling like he was being punched – again and again – by all his memories and mistakes. His failures.

He was so heavy – everything he has lived felt so utterly tiring that his legs couldn't take the pain anymore, just like all of him, and he crumbled right there, on the streets, crying.

Crying for the love that he felt but was so abruptly turned to pain; for love he wanted – that he should have had – but was taken away; for the love he longed to give, but ended up screwing it up; and for the love he has always been feeling, but was never enough: enough to keep them alive, enough to protect him, enough to be the person that was needed, enough to take good care of her, enough to be loved like he wanted to.

"I'm sorry–", he tried to speak between a sob and another, "I'm sorry... I'm so_–so_ sorry", but his voice was so small he couldn't even believe himself.

He looked up to the sky hoping to find smiles and faces he hasn't seen in too many years – long gone, but never forgotten – and there's nothing but the shine of things he didn't really care about (like silly stars and the moon)... As the empty inside of him screamed for somebody to save his soul from the hollow he himself carved.

So he did the next thing someone that was looking for something to hold on did: he looked to his side, both of them, trying to find someone – anyone – to make the pain go away.

There was no one. He was alone. Just like always.

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><p><strong>an:**

oh my gosh, that was a reaaaaally difficult one to write! i'm sorry for the delay, but just believe me when i say i never took so long to write anything in my life. i know i took a risk trying to make this, telling ya what i think happened, but it was like i needed to. the idea came to me and i just couldn't get it out of my head.

i always wondered why mako had that "i'll do anything i have to, to survive" in the beginning and i felt like maybe that had something to do to what happened to his parents.

i always thought that it was like somebody broke into their home when Mako was not there, and his parents tried to fight the guy, but he was too strong so the least they could do was save Mako before it was too late. or something like that.

i'm super nervous as to what you'll think about this, but it's done so... you know, tell me what you think.

again, sorry for the mistakes... not my mother language and my microsoft word is stiiiiiiill not working :(

feel free to tell me what you think about this in a review, PM, anything.

and thank you for reading this. i can't tell you how much this means to me. :)

**disclaimer:**

i don't own anything related to LOK or A:TLA, sadly.


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